


Trust

by KingRiles



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Garnet & Lapis have a Chat™, Oneshot, implied lapidot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-12 17:45:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15345138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingRiles/pseuds/KingRiles
Summary: Garnet and Lapis have a small chat about fusion, and what it really means.





	Trust

**Author's Note:**

> I've always wanted to see Garnet and Lapis talk-- especially about fusion. Consider this an impulsive spew of words that may or may not make sense. In Amethyst's words-- was going for a ~feeling~.

Sea foam swirled and danced at the tips of Lapis’ toes, daunting enough to spritz her skin with cool spray but fearful enough to recede at the last moment, tucking back into the safety of the ocean’s torrent.

The blue gem made no effort -- not even minimal -- to will the water to act any differently. She was content to only sit there, knees drawn pensively up to her chest as the water whispered ever closer. With how still the night and the sea were, it was far too easy to forget how the very same waters had once become her own self-inflicted prison.

But in the same vein, it was so easy to remember how it had been.

Lapis let out a long, languid breath, the ghost of her faux breath tickling against the skin on her forearms.

Peridot was back at the barn, tinkering with the dysfunctional robonoids she’d been struggling to recuperate into security droids. Lapis had left her to the devices, explaining that she’d be found at the TV if Peridot needed her. Not that she was any good with Homeworld technology-- let alone the more modernistic types. The green gem had hummed affirmatively but appreciatively, clamping her welding goggles over her visor before tucking into her work.

It had been the mid-season finale of season two of Camp Pining Hearts that had spurred Lapis onto the strained flight that quickly turned into an aimless meditation down on the beachfront.

_“But Percy--!”_

_“I said no! I can do this on my own!”_

_“You say that-- but is that how you really feel? We’re better, faster, and stronger than all the other campers when we do it_ **_together._  **

_“What about before. . ?”_

_“_ **_Before?_ ** _I can be_ **_better_ ** _than before. I_ **_am_ ** _. I’ve changed. You’ve cha--!”_

Lapis had spread her wings and fled before the scene could finish. That episode had always made her abdomen squirm with a familiarly unpleasant ache, one that needed peace of mind and resolve to abate.

Too bad she couldn’t find either of those sentiments within herself tonight.

So she just sat and stared out into the open sea. The night was dark-- a new moon, Peridot had told her after bulking up on her knowledge of Earth’s placement in the local solar system, a few weeks ago. The faintest thread of bioluminescence gleamed in the surf, radiant in the absence of a luminous moon to upshow it.

A fresh wave of frothy water surged onto the shore, this time reaching up to Lapis’ heels, nipping longingly at the folds of the skirt caught there. Yet as soon as it came it fled back into the sea, recharging for the next charge.

Lapis wondered if the sea was ever this serene while she’d been at the bottom of it, fighting up a storm that should have rocked the ocean’s surface with the ferocity of an earthquake. Fighting her, to keep them both concealed in the choking darkness that lurked where no human had ever been before.

Meaningful footfalls in the moist sand tore Lapis out from that dreadful train of thought before it could derail and stimulate the worst in her. The ocean gem fully expected Peridot to have found her, since the barn was just over the hill-- but instead she found Garnet making her way down the beach, headed in her direction.

Involuntarily Lapis felt a pulse through her gem, an internal trigger to sprout wings and take off before she could be reached, but the Crystal Gem seemed to sense her guardedness and rose a hand, peaceable. Lapis grabbed onto her skirt tighter in response, turning her eyes pointedly back out at the ocean.

“Hello, Lapis Lazuli,” the fusion’s voice was passive as the footsteps stopped just beside Lapis, and the sand scuffed in response to a larger mass dropping to rest beside her. “Mind if I sit?”

Lapis gave Garnet a quick glance through the corners of her eyes. “You’re already sitting.”

“I am,” the larger gem asserted. Lapis couldn’t tell if she’d said it with warmth or with purpose.

The two sat in a silence that could have been benign, had it not been for the knots of tension compacted into Lapis’ reclusive frame, leaking out between them and tainting the space between them.

Lapis never knew what to expect out of the Crystal Gem’s de facto leader. Garnet had always been staid, a cool, collected figure to contrast the other Gems. There was some part of her that was grateful that it was Garnet who had found her on the shore and not one of the others, for reasons she didn’t want to delve into. Not when her mind was already so clouded with apprehension.

“What’s brought you out here tonight?”

Garnet’s voice willed her back into her present. Lapis shrugged nonchalantly, fingers tugging absently at the fabric of her halter top. “The. . . moon. On the water. Looked nice.”

Garnet didn’t break her gaze away from Lapis. “There’s no moon tonight.”

Lapis could feel her teeth grind against the inside of her lip as she was caught in the lie. Of course Garnet would notice; she should’ve just said the stars, or something.

“You’re thinking of your time as Malachite.”

 _“Wh--_ What?” Lapis sputtered, whipping around towards Garnet in astonishment. How did she guess that?

“It’s troubling you,” Garnet continued, voice empathetic. “I’m sorry for what happened. You haven’t spoken to Peridot about it?”

Lapis turned away slightly. “I don’t think she would understand.”

Garnet was still for a moment, hands frozen over her lap. Then her lips twitched and she regarded Lapis with a knowing half-smile. “Peridot tries very hard to understand, and I credit her for that. Peridot did try fusion, once.”

Lapis’ brows furrowed with bemusement. “Really?”

Garnet hummed thoughtfully. “Yes. She was still very new to the Earth and to the Crystal Gems, and was actively making efforts to better understand all of us.” She flicked her wrists, revealing the two faceted gems adorning her palms. “Including myself.”

Lapis looked on with a tick in her jaw at Garnet’s upturned hands, the figure cogs beginning to churn in lackluster within her head. “She never told me about that.”

Garnet pursed her lips. “I imagine that she finds fusion as difficult a topic as you,” the gem regarded.

Lapis felt a bitterness that she knew was misplaced crawl up her throat. “How could she?”

“Peridot is a gem of understanding and logic,” Garnet elaborated. “She wanted, or _wants_ to understand it; how she will approach the situation if presented to her is a mystery lost to even myself.”

Lapis swallowed the tartness she could feel threatening to flush through her. Peridot never talked much about fusion. She attributed that aspect to the fact that Peridot seemed to be aware of Lapis’ discomfiture on the subject, and let it drop more than rise in passing conversation.

“She told me that she couldn’t do it,” Garnet was finishing, and while her opaque visor was focused on the ocean shrouded by the dark horizon, Lapis felt the weight of her gaze as if it were boring directly into the core of her gem. “I believe that she can. But she must first be willing to understand it for what it truly is and be moved to experience it.”

Then it was turn for Garnet to pivot her hidden eyes back towards Lapis, lips taut with a mixture of emotions that Lapis couldn’t decipher. “Just like you.”

Lapis felt a trail of cold thrill up her back, pooling around her gem as she quickly tore her eyes away, her stare pointedly setting at some mundane spot in the surf. “I don’t know about _me._ ”

“What don’t you know?” Garnet inquired back, which earned an irritated huff out of Lapis as she tucked her legs closer to her.

“I don’t know. I. .” She swallowed tensely. “Fusion is supposed to be good and I’ve already ruined for myself once. Why should I have to drag he-- some. . some _other_ gem into it?” The words tore from Lapis’ mouth, ragged and raw. “I don’t want to feel that way again. Or any other gem to feel that way, for that matter, I. .”

Her voice dwindled into nothing, and this time Garnet was not readily equipped with a response. The silence that elapsed between them was pregnant with suspense: one gem awaited condemnation, a confirmation that what she’d done was wrong and should prohibit her from fusion ever again-- but the other, she stared into the sea with a joyless quirk to the edges of her lips. “Fusion is meant to be a choice: a choice of two gems who should trust one another unconditionally.”

Lapis closed in on herself a little more.

“There must be balance. That’s not to say that it must be perfect; everyone experiences fusion in a different way. Fusion is not a weapon, but a way to be open, to be honest, and to invent yourselves, together.”

Lapis looked up wanly, blinking silently at Garnet through the wavy bangs of her fringe.

“I cannot imagine for your situation in Malachite, but I can tell you that one bad experience in fusion should not create for you a sense of tunnel-vision; the best thing to do is to learn and recognize that it was bad and wrong, and want to be able to move forward in that revelation.” Garnet set her shoulders, the hinting in her voice telling of finality. Garnet’s fingers poised on the cornered edges of her visor, re-adjusting them in a knowing manner.

“I’m not saying that you must, as fusion is always the gem’s choice. Both of them. But if you ever feel that the time is right, and it is time to move on, and if there is a gem there that you trust to share in that new light of reinvention. . .” Garnet dissipated her visors, revealing three eyes aglisten with hopeful knowing, “I believe that you can do it.”

Lapis watched Garnet carefully. She believed in her. A gem genuinely believed that-- she could do _better_. It was such a foreign feeling, leaving a bittersweet taste on the top of her tongue. She thought she was ready to move on to. . . talk of better things, but there was one question in Lapis’ mind that refused to quell.

“How do you do it?” She asked, chin tucked nervously into her folded arms. “How do you. . . stay _whole_? How do you. . .”

“Stay _me_?”

Lapis nodded wordlessly, not trusting her voice. Garnet leaned backwards slightly, the sand sifting beneath the shift in weight. “I am the will of two gems who love and care for one another; I suppose I could say that it’s easy, but to learn to care and love for another gem does not come easily to every gem. It should. . . come naturally, rather than superficially, with someone you trust.”

The silence between them now held that same note of finality. . . but it was no longer tense like before. For the first time that night, Lapis’ head was relatively clear-- she was able to just focus on the sensation of sea spray kissing her skin, of the sights and scents of the ocean, of the motes of sand pushing against her skirt. She was able to focus on. . . herself. The parts of her that were worth. . . recovering.

This quiet lasted some indeterminable amount of time. Yet before Lapis knew it, Garnet was suddenly up and on her feet, dusting grains of sand from her thighs as she reached a hand out to Lapis. Lapis stared at it questioningly, before taking it briefly in her own to lurch herself onto her feet. “You had better return to your barn. I have a feeling someone’s waiting for you.”

“Oh-- Peridot!” She’d completely forgotten about her! How long had she been on the beach? Granted, she did take solitary flights every now and again-- but she’d said she would be at the truck. Lapis emerged her wings and turned around to fly off in the direction of the barn, before receiving pause and giving Garnet a look over her shoulder.

“Um--” Lapis uttered, not really knowing how to convey the genuine gratitude she felt for their exchange. “. . Thanks.” She faltered for a moment, water wings quivering, before giving the fusion a tentative thumbs-up. It was something she’d learned from said gem, after all.

Garnet regarded the gesture, smiled briefly, and flashed a thumbs-up of her own, before turning and strolling back down the beach in the direction of Beach City. Lapis wondered briefly why she didn’t just use the nearby warp to transport back into Steven’s house, but, quickly crossed the thought out. It was just another Garnet enigma that she didn’t feel like unwrapping right then.

Lapis flew back to the barn, finding that someone-- definitely Peridot-- had shut off the TV on the truck.

“Lapis, oh thank the _stars!_ ” Peridot’s voice carried from the loft of the barn, where she was dangling, a foot stuck between the wooden support post to the loft and its support branches. “The drones have gone _rogue!_ ”

The robonoids she’d been fiddling with earlier were running rampant through the barn, occasionally targeting Peridot and flying towards her as if to attack before curving and heading around in the opposite direction-- kind of like that thin saucer thing Lapis had found a week ago. It wouldn’t leave her alone until she stopped throwing it around. On top of that, Pumpkin was barking wildly at the things as they dashed back and forth across the space, only adding to the discord that now wreaked havoc upon their barn.

“What did you do to make them mad?” Lapis asked, far too amused by the chaos playing out before her to make any effort to actually help.

“ _Nothing!_ ” Peridot shrilled, writhing with defiance when a stray drone whizzed past her. “I was resetting the drive in one of the more dysfunctional robonoids when-- _yipe!_ ” She swallowed her words when the spazzing drone did a double-take, skimming her face so closely that clipped the tip of her nose. Peridot hissed and shielded her face protectively with a hand. “They all. . came alive!”

Lapis sighed and gave a wave of her hand, summoning water from the wall exposing the insides of the silo, spraying each rogue robonoid with a small dose of the stuff. It was enough to send them careening to earth, though, glitching and twitching as the water raided their sensitive circuits.

“Aww,” she heard Peridot whine from above. “I just fixed those circuits. . .”

Lapis’ lips set into a soft line. “It’s okay, I can just take all the water out of them later. When you’re not stuck on the loft.”

“I am not _stuck_ ,” Peridot scoffed, but it went unheard by Lapis who called upon her water wings to fly the extra few feet up to her barnmate.

“You definitely are,” Lapis murmured as hovered next to where Peridot was caught in the beam, eyeing the beam and the foot wedged into it.

“I’d better not fall,” Peridot huffed, relaxing her body but still keeping her arms crossed over her chest. The skin on her cheeks and neck were looking a little bluer than usual. When Lapis reached in and adjusted the angle of Peridot’s foot, Peridot fell loose.

And fall she did, heading face-first to the barn floor below. Whatever cursory gasp of shock the green gem had been making was effectively cut off when she found herself hovering just above the floorboards, slim blue arms wrapped around her waist.

“See?” Lapis coerced. “Not falling.” A beat. “Anymore.”

Peridot’s face was hidden from Lapis, but the words that left the smaller gem were very much heard. “Ah, _well._ Of course I knew I wouldn’t fall. I trusted you’d make sure of that!”

She trusted her. The notion ballooned, pooling into Lapis’ chest and encouraging some sense of. . . _rightness_ within it. Garnet’s words came rushing back, speaking of the embodiment of trust-- of. . . _fusion_. Lapis stared blankly at the back of Peridot’s head, the pale tufts of hair just barely whispering against her sharp chin.

 _A gem you trust,_ Garnet had said. Lapis. . . _did_ trust Peridot. They trusted one another. But neither of them-- at least. . not Lapis, not. . . not _yet_ \-- were ready for that. Lapis was caught reflecting on specifically that for some unknown amount of time, the timeless flapping of her wings clipped only by Peridot’s curious voice.

“Uh, Lapis?”

“Yeah?"

“You can let me down now.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm considering writing another little character-study one-shot based on Garnet and Peridot next, set around "Can't Go Back" time-- something to get me back into the writing game since I've been out of my own head lately!


End file.
